


I Want You and I Want Him

by graytheglowinggay



Series: X-Men: My Self-Indulgent Gay Nonsense [5]
Category: Alpha Flight, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Canon Rewrite, Closeted Bobby Drake, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Developing Relationship, Experimental Style, Gay Bobby Drake, Hook-Up, Inspired by Music, Jealousy, Little Dialogue, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Open Marriage, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Pining from the Closet, Polyamory, Pre-Age of X-Man, Pre-House of X, Pre-Poly, Threesome - M/M/M, gratuitous use of commas, title from a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graytheglowinggay/pseuds/graytheglowinggay
Summary: Bobby Drake never thought he'd find love. It found him anyway.Title from "Apple Candy" by Ben Lee.
Relationships: Bobby Drake/Kyle Jinadu, Jean-Paul Beaubier/Bobby Drake, Jean-Paul Beaubier/Bobby Drake/Kyle Jinadu, Jean-Paul Beaubier/Kyle Jinadu
Series: X-Men: My Self-Indulgent Gay Nonsense [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693336
Kudos: 13





	I Want You and I Want Him

**Author's Note:**

> I chose to rate this mature and not teen, but the sex scene/references are fairly minor, I just decided to air on the side of caution, just in case anyone's reading this in public.

Bobby never thought he’d find love. For all sorts of reasons, least of which his being a mutant and a closeted gay man. He had flings, of course, too many to count, with women both mutant and human, and even some aliens for good measure. Of course, they never lasted. Not just because he was gay, either. He was a bad boyfriend. He was forgetful, neglectful, at times unaffectionate and cold (no pun intended), at times clingy and needy. He thought it was no wonder that many of the girls he dated ended up finding their true love after. He was the awful relationship that served as a contrast to the fairy-tale happily ever after. Of course, Jean-Paul Beaubier didn’t help.

When he and Northstar had first met, the French-Canadian had rubbed him the wrong way, to say the least. He was about as different from Bobby as one could get: humorless, prideful, and utterly self-assured. And Jean-Paul was beautiful, his lithe, athlete’s body in that skin-tight jumpsuit, every muscle accentuated by the smooth fabric, his black-and-silver hair swept across his forehead, his pointed ears and high cheekbones and chiseled jaw, his piercing blue eyes beneath his upturned eyebrows. It was an ethereal, inhuman sort of beauty, the kind you might expect of the fairies in an old painting. The kind you admired from afar, afraid of what power you might awaken if you got too close. Bobby was fine to admire from afar, but other things complicated his boyish crush. Jean-Paul was gay, and open about it, unafraid of backlash wherever it might come from. Bobby wasn’t sure whether to be proud, jealous, or infuriated. How was the speedster able to do it; to be a mutant and a gay man? To make his entire person something political, something to be fought against, something to never truly be safe?

Sometimes, he thought he caught Northstar staring at him, just out of the corner of his eye. Bobby was almost certain it was out of a lack of trust, an inability to imagine someone as immature as him to have any sense of responsibility. Sometimes, though, he let himself hope that it came from something more.

When they had teamed up again, Jean-Paul was no longer single. He had a boyfriend, Kyle Jinadu, and the two of them were so perfect together that it made Bobby want to scream. They had the same attitude, the same casual confidence, the same ease with their own identities. Bobby watched them, so casually in love, and it found something deep inside of him and buried itself in there. Every stolen glance, every touch of a hand, every gentle kiss was a blade twisting between his ribs. More than anything, he wanted that— to be loved by another man in that way he could never have with a woman. He kept flirting and dating and breaking hearts, of course. What else could he do?

Bobby wasn’t surprised when he learned that Jean-Paul and Kyle would be getting married. They were meant for each other. But through the preparations, through the ceremony and the reception, a part of him was dying. Northstar was married now. That door was closed. The only man he thought might ever bring him out of that stuffy closet he’d trapped himself in for decades belonged to someone else, now and forever.

He was wrong, of course. Nothing was ever certain when it came to being an X-Man, and when Hank brought the teenage version of the original X-Men into the present, Bobby was forced to face his younger self. So many memories came back upon seeing that familiar face. When he’d found that nudie magazine with the guys in jockstraps that made his pants all tight. When he’d walked in on a classmate in the locker room and immediately ran into a bathroom stall to hide his blush. When he’d first met Warren Worthington and had dreams about him where he’d wake up with damp bedsheets. Did this other Bobby experience those same things? Did it worry him too? Did he kneel at the edge of his bed and pray for it to stop? 

When he was finally confronted by his teenage self and the teenaged Jean Grey, he knew he couldn’t hide any longer. Not just because of the obvious fact of Jean’s telepathy, but because he couldn’t just lie to his younger self, make his journey of sexuality and self-discovery even harder than it already was. Bobby was gay. He knew it, his younger self knew it too. It was something he had tried to run away from, even thought sometimes that he’d succeeded, but denial never ends the way you want it to. And he watched as that younger Bobby Drake was out and open, and found a boyfriend, and went on dates without a care in the world because he didn’t have to go through what Bobby went through, he wasn’t closeted for his entire adult life up until that point, he hadn’t had to watch the only other gay mutant that he knew being out and open while he suffocated himself, woke up every day and chose to lie to himself, to deny the only thing that could make him well and truly happy.

So he was out now. It didn’t get rid of the years he’d wasted. It didn’t make run-ins with ex-girlfriends any less awkward, make dating any easier, make his relationship with his parents any less icy (ha). All around him were men who knew what they were doing, who had spent years, decades learning all the ins and outs of being gay. Every time he ran into an old teammate who asked him who he was dating now, he had to do it all over again. Most of the reactions were positive, but some of them weren’t. Everyone was still polite, of course, but he could see something change in their eyes, a hostility that would always be there from that moment forward.

It was hardest for him to come out to Northstar. He had done it over the phone; he didn’t think he’d be able to find the words in person. He said those three words, and there was silence.

_“Did it kill you inside, to see my happiness?”_

There was an understanding, from one gay man to another, that he never got when he came out to his straight friends.

_“I was closeted once, too. Long ago. But I still remember how it felt.”_

Jean-Paul’s voice was quiet, sincere, the usual biting edge of sarcasm absent.

_“You should come over for dinner. Kyle and I would love to have you.”_

And he was standing in the doorway of the Jinadu-Beaubiers’ apartment, and he was walking inside, and there was a look exchanged between Jean-Paul and his husband, one that Bobby couldn’t put a name to in the slightest. They ate, and they talked, and Jean-Paul stood up from the table.

_“A long time ago, I had feelings for you, Bobby.”_

What? Bobby looked to Kyle, expecting to see some surprise on his face, but found none.

_“By the time I was with Kyle, I thought they had gone away. When you came out to me, I realized I was wrong.”_

Bobby looked back and forth between Jean-Paul and Kyle. Were they breaking up? Why was he telling him this?

_“I am attracted to you, Bobby, but I also love my husband. I thought I was at an impasse.”_

Did Kyle just wink at Jean-Paul?

_“In despair, I told Kyle. He was surprised, but he had an idea.”_

Bobby wasn’t ice, felt frozen to his chair.

_“In short, I am proposing physical involvement between all three of us. However far you feel comfortable taking it.”_

Bobby had been out as gay for less than a month and he had already received a proposal for a threesome. Alright, then.

_“If you do not feel the way that I do, we can drop the subject and I will never mention it again. You can even leave if you wish.”_

Bobby couldn’t tell if this situation was out of a romance novel or a porno. Maybe both. Maybe it was a dream, but if it was, it was the most real dream he ever had. If it was a dream, he never wanted to wake up.

_“Let’s go for it.”_

It was not Bobby’s first time being intimate with another man, but it was one of few. Certainly, it was his first time with two men. Things moved slowly, awkwardly, the three of them reconfiguring tried-and-true positions to accommodate an extra body. And yet, the pleasure erased every little mistake. Kisses and caresses he had pushed into the darkest recesses of his mind, acts he would only let himself imagine only in the most desperate hours of the night, alone and full of shame. There was no shame in this. It was beautiful and it was messy and every fantasy he had created paled in comparison.

Though he was invited to spend the night, Bobby left soon after. Some places still felt closed off to him, and top of the list was the shared sensual bliss that followed coitus. Jean-Paul and Kyle, what they had felt sacred to him. They had opened their bed to him and it felt like a trap.

It continued, though, not just the three of them together, but just Jean-Paul and Bobby or just Kyle and Bobby. Not just planned interactions, but causal, spontaneous hookups and little bits of passing intimacy. Finally, he worked up enough confidence to take up Jean-Paul and Kyle’s offer to stay the night. The two men’s bed was large enough to accommodate all three of them, and Bobby slept between them, his head resting on Jean-Paul’s chest and Kyle spooned against him. In the morning, he woke to find Kyle gone. He assumed the worst, but it turned out that Kyle always woke up early, and had made breakfast for the three of them. Bobby ate with the two of them at their kitchen table as the sun shined through the window.

Slowly, Bobby noticed changes around the apartment. First, it was a third pillow on the bed. Then, a third chair at the table. The fridge and pantry were kept stocked with the foods and drinks that he liked.

_“Jeez, it’s practically like I live here.”_

Like most things he said, he meant it as a joke.

_“Well, you can.”_

Bobby looked at Kyle in surprise.

_“I mean, if you want to.”_

Bobby didn’t have a place of his own. Usually, he lived at the school, with small stints in apartments or condos whenever things were rough between him and the X-Men. A home, not just for him, but shared with those he loved? He hadn’t allowed himself to even consider it.

_“That’d be great.”_

Bobby moved in, and not much changed. More furniture was bought for the master bedroom, and they eventually bought a larger mattress, but there was a lot of the same. Eventually, they settled into a routine. 

Kyle woke up first and made breakfast before leaving for work. Bobby and Jean-Paul woke up around the same time, and Jean-Paul would make the bed and then shower. They’d eat whatever Kyle cooked before leaving for the school. Sometimes, it was just Bobby going to the school, as Jean-Paul was involved with Alpha Flight business. When they were both teaching, they’d spend their lunches together in the courtyard, sharing a bench and stealing bites of each other’s meals. They’d get home and they would take turns making dinner, the type of dish depending on the man cooking it. Sometimes, after dinner, they’d end up in the bedroom, but just as often they might watch a TV show, or go for a walk, or do the chores that Jean-Paul was so insistent on having done. Kyle went to bed first, and sometimes Bobby and Jean-Paul would go to bed with him, but other times they’d stay awake, doing separate things but still sharing the same room. Bobby would take his shower, and they’d fall asleep together, in whatever configuration they ended up in that night.

It was strange, perhaps, but Bobby wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> Two fics in one day, what am I, Stephen King? Just kidding, I'm just gay. I've been a fan of Bobby Drake since I was a kid, so it was interesting that I discovered his post-coming out solo series(es) not long after I figured out my own sexuality. So he's got a special place in my heart for that and many reasons. There's a lot of "what if?"s when it comes to his relationship with Northstar, and this fic covers most of my thoughts on it.


End file.
